Dr Annette Idler serves as the academic lead for the courses. By focusing on multidisciplinary investigative approaches, this course explores the political context driving the genesis of armed violence and the forces shaping group cohesion, resource strategies, internal structures and levels of violence. The course aims at building the capacity of UN staff to better understand the nature and actors of current armed violence.

The target audience is midlevel UN personnel but the course s also open to INGOs, NGOs, academia, think tanks, donor representatives etc.